My Trial Instruction Flight: Impressions
I've been toying with the idea of pursuing a career as a pilot (like many), and today I completed my Trial Instruction Flight (TIF) at the local airport in a Cessna 150 Aerobat.
It was a typical calm, clear skies winter morning here in Queensland Australia, so it was a smooth flight and landing. I got the feel for controlling the aircraft with a couple of turns, climbs and descents. I also got to practice maintaining level flight whilst idling the throttle and then bringing it back up, countering the slipstream with the rudder.
All in all, it was a great experience, but there was a couple of things I wasn't too sure about:
- I was first flight of the day, and when we got out to the aircraft we jumped straight in and didn't check the exterior of the plane or do a fuel check. I asked if its usual practice to do this and he said that he'd done it earlier that morning.
- When we landed, the C150 AB had a notcieable amount of shudder in the nose-wheel, and the pilot said that he had to pull back on the stick a bit to take some of the weight off the nose-wheel until we had slowed down.
I'm not sure if these things are pretty normal or not. The instructor was excellent, informative, personable and handled the aircraft flawlessly (to my untrained eye).
I'm pretty sure I am going to pursue the CPL (commercial pilot licence), but am in two minds as to where to do it. I live in a small town, and the Aero-Club that conducted the TIF with me cannot offer all the ratings that I require to be employable Eg: Instructor Rating.
Is it a bad idea to do my PPL with the local club and then move to a city that offers all the ratings and CPL I need?
Going to the city will get me a better price on my training, and maybe a better training quality overall, as well as being able to train from go-to-woah with the one school.
There are some schools in Australia that offer a TAFE (tertiary education below a degree level) course in "Transport and Distribution Systems" along with the CPL, is this worth the effort, or an un-necessary expense?
Thanks for any comments and replies,
Jazz